PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

After stumbling through the desert

for some time

midnight long past

and no map

I came across a friend



a lone cactus



standing up by himself

wishing

that by natures luck

another had grown beside him



but nothing had ever sprung up.



I approached and began conversation



we got to talking about life

and strangely enough

had some similarities

only once he had seen a rattlesnake.

I had never seen one.

We talked for a while

until I grew tired

and I decided to rest my drunken legs

so I sat down

next to my new friend

and layed back



and then it happened



a severe pain ran through my back

and I twisted and turned

and then shot up,



"you awful cactus", I said.

"you rotten excuse for a plant, you just stabbed me in the back".



the cactus began to say something to me

something like ,"sorry, I have thor..."

but I cut him off mid sentence

with a swift kick to the base

and then another

and

another



until he fell, silently

and I wondered if I had finished him off

so I went to shake him a bit

and that bastard stabbed me again.

I had taken enough abuse, so

I walked away

into the desert night.





I had just about reached home again

when I heard the strangest noise

coming from my left side

so I turned quickly and was awestruck



because you see



right there beside me



a shadowy

and barely noticable snake

creeped past

rattling a hideous song



I stood motionless for as long as I could

until it was safe to walk again

and the rattlesnake had taken off.



Then I began to move again

only back in the direction

of a friend I had kicked down

not so long ago.



I was excited the whole way

until I got back to the spot

where the attack happened

and sure enough, there on the ground

was my recent victim.



By this point then sun had begun rising

and I could see that the dryness of the desert

had already altered the cactus's color

to a slightly browner green

and he was shriveling with wrinkles more heartbreaking

then the bedsheets of a murder.



I knelt down beside him and I said

soflty in his spikes and leathery skin, "I finally saw a rattlesnake".



what a disaster.